Talk:Stacking Ability Modifiers (3.5e Variant Rule)

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Eiji-kun dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

This rating refers to a substantially different version of the article, or concerns mentioned in it have already been addressed.I can't really say I understand your recent quest against the monk, especially since it seems universally accepted that its on the bottom while wizard/cleric/druid is top tier. Anyway, I agree with Leziad here. The monks you propose have absurdly high point buys and completely disregard MAD. If they are successful in only one thing, be it AC, or attack, or anything of the sort, they have utterly sacrificed themselves everywhere else with no options. Meanwhile, wizards will continue to wear their invisible weightless no ASF full plate and tower shields for the cost of 0 gp and a few spell slots. 420 cast it.

It's not that I dislike the monk. It's that I dislike falling off the RNG. That said, I've edited it to buff them up a bit. --Ghostwheel (talk) 21:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I've noticed, but to what end? Well rather than criticize the devotion to the ideal (you already know my view) I think I should address the problem at hand here. I'm gonna focus on the monk here rather than the paladin change since that's a different can of beans. I don't think you understand the crux of what makes the monk weaker than every other class, and it ultimately boils down to MAD. Monks are MAD as hell because in practice games usually can only buff one, maybe two ability scores well while the rest flounder. Now this isn't inherently fatal to other classes because often a foundering score can be supported elsewhere through items and abilities. Low-Dex fighters rely on their heavy armor and shield. Low-Wis paladins are fine because their spells usually don't care about DCs. Gishes may go with a low casting stat for the same reason and archers can get away with low Con by never being in melee in the first place.

What of the monk? The choice usually comes down between attack and defense, and between the two attacking is superior since a high AC tank is useless if it can't hit, or if when it does hit it only deals a few points of damage. May as well go glass cannon and deal as much offense as you can before you run out of defense. As a result, many monks will end up buffing Str, and subsequently their secondary must be Con because they need to play a war of attrition. What about Weapon Finesse? Well, this opens up Dex monks with Con secondary, but now they aren't dealing enough damage. Unlike the rogue's 10d6, 2d10 simply doesn't keep up no matter how many attacks they pull out through flurry of blows. What about Str and Dex? They have attack, and moderate defense, but now they've got no Con to help them survive when a blow does get through.

And in all of these examples I haven't even touched Wis, which is a forth score they need to keep up. You can switch Weapon Finesse for Zen Warrior and get the same effect as before but now Wis/Str probably for archery, the most viable of all builds. But we have long escaped the core idea of what the monk is. In your previous examples exalting the idea of high AC monks it requires a monk who is dedicated to defense, one where Dex/Wis is most important. Will you get high AC? Possibly. At the expense of the ability to hit, or with Weapon Finesse/Zen the ability to deal damage. But wait, surely they can get their extra damage through items, they merely need to enhance their unarmed strike and... ah wait, no, WotC decided to bone them there too. Triple cost for the same benefit as others. You can dive into Savage Species for that necklace, consuming one of the most used item spots in the game, but that's 3.0 and not 3.5 so it may not always pass mustard. To be fair, with the Scorpion Kama in 3.5 there is at least some way to properly enhance unarmed attacks now. I dare say its a requirement. Also amusingly the archer monk wins here again since they can have the benefits of enhancement on archery.

And unlike the fighter example listed above monks cannot supplement (or easily supplement) a floundering ability score via items. The fighter has his heavy armor to make up for low dex, but if the monk wears armor (which he is not normally proficient in the first place) he loses many class features, even things to his offense. He cannot cast spells for his armor like the wizard. The monk cannot supplement his lack of damage with something like power attack normally; medium BAB gets in the way of using it effectively. Maybe if the monk multiclasses out to get some proficiency or spells or... no wait, they actually have a multiclassing clause, they can't even do that right (a rule I and many ignore because its yet another inane restriction). Enhanced weapons are difficult to come by with their prices usually inflated and being unable to host certain properties such as cold iron and silver (again Scorpion Kama is our release though). And in the end the fighter's +5 full plate will be far cheaper than the monk's bracers of armor +8, and yet also more protective. The fighter only really needed two ability score buffing items, the monk is trying to spend twice that amount. The same goes for tomes and manuals and most other buffs, the monk needs more compared to his brothers.

So what is the entire endgame of the rant? I think your approach is flawed because regardless of Wisdom applies to AC, DR, armor bonus, sparkle power, or any other ability is largely irrelevant, because that bonus is not going to be high enough to matter, and if it ever is then it will be at the cost of everything else. They have too much MAD to be effective at what they do. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:45, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Again, the problem you're addressing is irrelevant for a few reason.

First, it's not targeting the monk specifically. It's targeting everything that gains a second bonus to saves. That means dipping into monk and going druid/cleric, or swordsages (or just getting a Belt of the Monk, if you think that it grants Wis to AC--which I disagree vehemently with). Their AC can easily be obscene.

Second, with this iteration of the variant, monks aren't screwed over at early levels, since their AC will be the same as before, unless you're assuming that they get Mage Armor cast on them, which is irrelevant to their balance level (as I would say it's higher than Low balance).

Third, if we're allowing things like Mage Armor, then we can easily build a monk that's DAD rather than MAD (dex -> wis -> con). For example, splash a level of swordsage (or spend the feats) and grab Shadow Blade and Weapon Finesse. Now you can ignore your Strength completely.

Fourth, the monk is already weaker than every other class. This doesn't change anything beyond denying them the bonus from Bracers of Armor, which their Wisdom should be able to cover. (Or if their wisdom is low, they can grab it anyway, and become more tanky than the fighter HP-wise against mundane attacks due to their DR, which *quickly* stacks up, especially against multiple attacks per round which are often the case at higher levels, while their high saves grant them the ability to defend against many spells.)

Also note that as per MIC, you can stack natural armor and constitution bonuses without increasing the overall price of the necklace, which has your Big Six covered.

Lastly, even if a monk starts with 16 dex and 14 wis, they'll end up comparitive to the fighter in terms of AC (let's for the moment ignore the retardedness that is animated shields for a moment). At level 20, assuming they go dex-based (if they don't, then they're Low level, which is whatever), they'll have a Dexterity of 32 (+11) and a Wisdom of 24 (+7). This grants them an AC of 10 + 11 (Dex) + 7 (Wis) + 10 (def/natural armor) + 4 (innate bonus) = 38, which is comparitive to the fighter's AC (which I calculated [[1]]) of 36. The only thing they're missing is the bracers of armor--which you can still end up with if your Wisdom is low and you choose not to pump that up. The same monk, if it starts with 14 Str, can end up with +8 to str mod, which isn't that far off from if they made it their main stat. Plus they're much tankier than the fighter against mundane attacks (which, you know, is what AC defends against) and MUCH stronger against touch attacks. So assuming 32 point buy, you could easily go 14 16 12 8 14 8, which isn't very different from what most monks do anyway (they MIGHT switch str and dex). And if you dip swordsage at first level to prepare for Shadow Blade, they can ignore Str entirely.

In the end though, I don't think any of this matters because you're not addressing the main point of this variant--it's not about the monk specifically. It's about all the ways *everyone* can make their AC obscene by dipping into the class, and other classes that similarly gain an ability bonus to AC on top of Dexterity. If that occurs, then it's useless to throw attackers at them, especially ones that rely on iterative attacks for a portion of their damage, since they're off the RNG for most of their attacks (which is a bad thing). With this variant, they trade being untouchable for higher DR, which is much better than falling off the RNG. --Ghostwheel (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

EDIT: Let me give a quick example of a "regular" monk, a variant monk, and a fighter under this variant. Regular monk's AC at 20: 10 (Base) + 8 (Wisdom) + 11 (Dexterity) + 8 (Bracers of Armor) + 10 (Natural Armor/Deflection) + 4 (Innate) = 51.

Variant monk's AC at 20: 10 (Base) + 8 (Wisdom) + 11 (Dexterity) + 10 (Natural Armor/Deflection) + 4 (Innate) = 43, plus he gets DR 8/--.

Fighter AC at 20: 10 (Base) + 3 (Dex) + 13 (+5 Mithral plate) + 10 (Natural Armor/Deflection) = 36

We'll take a class of higher level, the Fighter, and his attack will be 20 (BAB) + 11 (Str) + 5 (Magic Weapon) + 2 (Greater Weapon Focus), with damage equal to 2d6 (Greatsword) + 5d6+5 (magic damage) + 16 (Str) + 4 (Greater Weapon Specialization) for a total of 7d6+25 (49.5 on average per hit).

According to this, the fighter is going to do on average 35.5 damage per round against the regular monk. Against the variant monk according to this, he does 78.5 damage per round. Lastly, against the fighter according to [2] this, he's doing 162 damage per round.

So what does this mean? First, it means that against the "normal" monk, iterative attacks are virutally useless, which is terrible at in Low/Moderate balance levels. (As boring as they are, they're supposed to be what makes you awesome.) Second, it means that under the variant, the monk still possesses MUCH more survivability than an equal-level fighter--the difference between d10 and d8 is not going to cover 50 extra damage every round, especially if you're taking the average for HP rather than taking max (and if you're taking max, the fighter's extra HP covers a single round of attacks before they're in a worst spot than the monk.

So yes, while it makes the monk slightly worse at high levels, they've still got more survivability than a higher-balance class, and on top of that, it makes iterative attacks continue to be meaningful. This is the reason attack bonus outscales the AC of most monsters at higher levels. To make iterative attacks awesome. Removing the meaningfulness of iterative attacks is... not the way to go in my book, regardless of how "boring" they might be, especially at lower balance levels. And ask yourself a question--should a moderate-level class with all the great moderate feats available deal only 21.9% of the damage they normally deal against a standard opponent against someone with full levels in a low-level class with no feats? --Ghostwheel (talk) 22:33, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

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Leziad dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

This rating refers to a substantially different version of the article, or concerns mentioned in it have already been addressed.This variant make the monks even worse, especially at low level. At early level unless the monk has a very high point buy it will suffer from pathetic AC, low HD and mediocre DR. At high level the DR is not a big relief, the boost to touch AC was way more precious since it also protected against some nasty spells. The paladin suffer less but I am pretty sure the nerf is a bad idea overall. Consider me unconvinced.

It's not about the monk specifically; it's about all abilities that let you gain a second ability modifier to a stat and mainly about falling off the RNG. --Ghostwheel (talk) 21:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Comments

DR/- works okay for mundane attacks, but what about all of the touch spells that will hit them more often? We can just focus on the spells of similar balance category even, since those are mostly energy damage spells rather than annoying status effects. There just doesn't seem to be that much here for those things, which include non-optimized warlock blasts. Just not worried about it?

The multi-save thing... you're not going to break the RNG anymore, sure, but you're going to see a big boost in pass rates because of iterative probability for most mid-range DCs that acts a lot like a RNG boost in those ranges. Have you run the numbers on that? If so, what sort of behavior did you see? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 21:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I prefer a big boost in pass rates over automatically succeeding on checks. Haven't done the math, but I agree, it's a sizable increase, though less than what gaining it on top would give, especially against mid-range DCs. Would it be better if it simply allowed you to use the other ability modifier instead of the standard one? Not sure that's "as good" as Divine Grace currently is, and might be too strong of a nerf. --Ghostwheel (talk) 22:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

There is no auto succeed on saves by modifier alone. Yes, I know that was hyperbole. You're basically trading a lower failure chance at lower DCs for a higher failure chance at higher DCs. And I'm not sure that it is actually less on average than you'd get for just stacking it on top. Rerolls are weird, and rerolls with varying bonuses doubly so. You should probably run the numbers before settling on any particular course of action, since what your doing right now might be just as bad (but different) than the RNG breaking you want to remove. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 23:52, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Edit - SPOILER! It is just as bad as what you're trying to replace (I used your example numbers). Worse even, up to the line where stacking is less than 1 success : 1 fail, and about indistinguishable until stacking is 1 success : 2 fail. Yeah, there's like 4 numbers where you're better off having stacking, but those are about where people with no stacking are at 1 success : 9 fail. Given that's the rest of your party and you're presumably trying to keep the stacker on the RNG with them, I'm going to call that a failure. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 00:24, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Do you think giving the possibility to simply replace the stat with Cha would be better? Would it be too big of a nerf? --Ghostwheel (talk) 17:43, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why you're worried about the nerf in this case. You think the ability is too powerful, that it puts people who have it off the RNG relative to other people. If you didn't think it was too powerful you wouldn't care that it broke the RNG right? Or is this an aesthetics thing? If it's not too powerful and just an aesthetics thing, then you don't want to nerf it and your current complicated plan is probably fine. Annoying and slightly stronger, but probably fine. If it is too powerful, you need to nerf it sufficiently that it isn't anymore. Simple replacement does that, and reduces save MAD. Or just let them declare that Cha Mod saves per day were actually passes instead of fails. Or they get rerolls on that many. Or whatever.

I have no idea what you're going for here other than bonus reduction, and on that point I'm generally with Eiji. The issue here is not the numbers. It's that the classes have "doesn't get hit by attacks" and "doesn't fail their saves" as class features, and DMs aren't expecting those to be actual abilities and try to over correct with numbers. It's an expectation problem, not an ability strength problem. If you don't like that ability, then you need to nerf it into not that ability and anything that you do to achieve your goals will be a nerf. Which you seem well on your way to doing. If you don't care about that ability, I have no idea why you're doing this in the first place. I guess there's a middle ground where you just replace the ability with a different ability, like your attempt at "takes less damage" for the monk, but whether that's a success or not depends on what you're going for. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 18:35, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Let me give an example of something I'm playing in a Pathfinder game: My character is a paladin/sorcerer (with another level splashed in from a different class, not important for this) going eldritch knight) and at level 6 his saves are +12/+13/+15 *without* a cloak of resistance. A level 6 caster will have a a DC of 10 + 3 (level) + 6 (Casting Stat), which means I only fail against their highest-level spell with my lowest save on a 6 or less. This will be further worsened at higher levels due to increase to cha, resistance bonus, and lower cost (comparitively) of boosting my stats that add to saves. I don't think this is a good thing. With the variant right now, instead they would be +10/+7/+14, so at least that way a caster could target my lowest save to have a comparitely decent chance of success. (Heightened Entangle, for example, would screw me over, as all my character's damage comes from melee attacks.)

While I do think it's too strong, I don't want to completely neuter the ability. Thinking more about it, I think as-is it's decent right now. What do you think? --Ghostwheel (talk) 18:49, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

So... you have multiclassing save shenanigans and you're worried about Cha mod? Did you even run the numbers with a solved multiclassing setup to see if it was acceptable instead of class feature tweaking, or is this just a preference for everyone to have the same levels save stacking weirdness? And Spell/Ability Focus isn't a thing anymore for the other side? And monster attribute inflation to boost DCs doesn't happen at high levels?

Those questions are mostly rhetorical I think. It's clear that you don't like the "doesn't fail saves" class feature. So yes, you should remove or replace that. I think it's misguided and unhelpful compared to adjusting expectations or dealing with multiclass issues, but whatever. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 19:13, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

What do you think of the current iteration? --Ghostwheel (talk) 19:54, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd never use it. It fulfills your goal (that I don't share) but is an insufficient tradeoff. In both cases you're replacing a nice thing about a class with something less nice, and not giving sufficient extra in return (the monk at least gets something though, useless as it is against higher level touch spells). Everything that previously had these features is worse now, and I don't agree that their sacrifice is better for the game without something else for them. I'm not sure that you could actually do a general case (which is what you want here) extra bonus thing to make up the difference though, and writing a bunch of ASFs is probably off the table. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 21:33, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

As far as the paladin goes--I agree. What would you suggest to give them on top of the change? One idea I had was giving them Spell Resistance that only comes into effect against hostile abilities, but I'm not sure if that's a great idea.

As for the monks... what? At first level, assuming 16 dex and 14 wis, you've got a touch AC of 15, higher than virtually any other character (even if only a point or two) where wizards are attacking with +2 or +3 on touch attacks. At level 20, you've got 10 + 11 (dex) + 8 (wis) + 5 (deflection) + 4 (innate monk bonus) = 36 AC vs. touch attacks, where casters are going to have, being generous, +18 or so, and are only ever going to hit you on a on an 18 or higher, which is the same as a "regular" monk. The bonus doesn't stack with armor bonuses to AC, but it interacts the same way with touch attacks. This variant is not a reduction in any way to the monk against touch attacks. --Ghostwheel (talk) 22:08, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Bracers of Armor grant a force based armor bonus, which adds to touch AC (because dumb rules) but does not stack with revised monk ability. So yes, reduction. Not a reduction you consider relevant maybe, but I consider your monk and wizard builds funny and unrepresentative and so don't agree with the point they're trying to make. The difference of opinion is likely a result of us not playing in the same types of games, even when those games are at a balance level you'd tolerate. I would suggest going with straight replacment of dex mod instead of armor, but that probably screws them at level 1 in ways that are unacceptable without other things. Still, if you're going to do something to them, decreasing their MAD by letting them pick a defense stat and stopping them from falling into the weapon finesse trap seems like a better start than the current setup.

I don't really have any more ideas about what to add for pallys, but I'd probably go offensive something. Defense isn't soemthing they need much more of, and you already don't like that they blow off spells the way they do so why do something like that again? I already ran numbers and dumped additional thoughts above though, and I'm not interested in spending more time on making something I don't care about work. The only reason you've gotten this much is because I prefer to discuss before I downrate as a courtesy. I'm pretty much done now though. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 22:57, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually, bracers of armor only add to AC against incorporeal/ethereal touch attacks; they act normally against regular touch attacks, same as Mage Armor or Shield. --Ghostwheel (talk) 23:53, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Ugh. Derp. I should have trusted my memory and re-checked that section rather than derping and dumping a bad reading of it here. Actually glad to have been wrong in this case though, and so I retract the monk touch AC nerf complaint. Not sure DR is a sufficient trade for giving up not getting hit still. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 01:02, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Compare the damage stopped from 4+ hits (more than reasonable at high levels) to the HP that a fighter has. I don't think you'll find it wanting. --Ghostwheel (talk) 22:19, 7 July 2014 (UTC)